I’ve been getting down with
a number of Kennedy’s recent jazz quintet
performances, some on disc and one on DVD.
This latest release is a two CD set featuring
a lot of new material written by Kennedy;
disc one is called Melody, disc two Invention
and the album title – though I’ve seen Melody;
Invention listed – is A Very Nice Album.

Those for whom Kennedy’s
jazz forays mean Blue Note jazz – with a strong
Duke Pearson meeting Horace Silver vibe –
should know that this album is cut from a
different cloth. It hews closer to the jazz-folk
scene, eschewing, in case that is to be misconstrued,
the Eastern European-tinted folkloric music
that his Polish band can embrace. Donovan
for instance, the very first track, features
Kennedy talking over the intro; stylistically
this is a sort of homage to Donovan, whom
many would doubtless consider an unlikely
object of Kennedy’s admiration. Xantoné
Blacq’s vocals enliven Carnivore of the
Animals with its L.A cum funk feel, at
least once past Kennedy’s rather hokey (all
right, juvenile) vocal contribution. The loose-limbed
lyrical feel that pervades the album – epitomised
by the relaxed Nice Bottle of Beaujolais,
innit? – is balanced by excursions to
the blues wherein N.K. gets down with a shopping
lament (Boo Boooz Blooooze) and unleashes
a pungent electric violin solo. Elsewhere
he pays audible obeisance to Hendrix.

He also brings some, one
assumes, political slant to bear on Invaders.
Like all the songs in the booklet it’s illustrated
with a little drawing. This one reads "Palestine
Rule OK." Whether the grammar is skewed
deliberately we don’t know but there’s a military-Semitic
sound to this one, alongside some rock ‘n’
roll crescendo – the twentieth century equivalent
of the Mannheim version. His band gets opportunities
of course. There are very dependable piano
and bass solos. Tenor player Tomasz Grzegorski
sounds Getz-like on Where all paths meet.

There are also Transitoires
– little solo violin reflections from Kennedy
– some Bachian in origin. Touchingly I think
– given what we know of his own relationship
with his Australian cellist father John Father
And Son opens with a keening examination
of O come O come Emanuel. Meanwhile
Hudson’s Ibitha is a groovy Eastern
European workout.

This is something of a bipartite
album, the first disc folksier than the second.
It’s uneven but evidence of Kennedy’s wide-ranging
musical enthusiasms.